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Atticus: Now it's even lonelier at the top as yet another aide leaves Blair

Somebody’s going to be clearing out their desk at No 10 this summer. But the bad news is: it’s not the desk that Gordon Brown was hoping for.

Geoff Mulgan, head of the Downing Street policy unit, has told friends he is planning to leave in June.

The decision will bemuse Tony Blair because he was only promoted to the job in September. Mulgan is one of a small group of advisers working on policies for the next Labour manifesto.

Whoever organises the leaving whiprounds at No 10 has been unusually busy lately. The list of officials who have left, or who are on their way, include Alastair Campbell; principal private secretary Jeremy Heywood; key foreign affairs adviser Sir David Manning; and Sir Stephen Wall, Blair’s chief adviser on European affairs.

Mulgan refused to discuss his “personal career”. But a colleague said: “He has made it clear that at the